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Recruiting Hospitality & Retail staff without receiving CVs

High volume hiring industries like hospitality and retail can now cut down the time it takes to recruit the right staff and associated costs. But to reap these benefits, employers must move away from a dependency on what has historically been the go-to resource for recruitment: the CV.

Thanks to advances in technology, high volume hiring companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) no longer have to tolerate the inefficiencies that are unavoidable with CV’s. For the sectors that invest heavily in ongoing recruitment, the savings in time and costs can be astronomical and lead to more streamlined workflows across all departments.

5 reasons why the CV is dead for service worker industries

CV’s have been used as the most convenient way to get candidate work and education history. But for high volume hiring industries this is no longer the case. Here are some of the main problems that CVs create:

Information that is irrelevant to the vacancy

Hospitality and retail businesses in the UAE may receive hundreds or thousands of applications per advertised vacancy for service workers. These companies are primarily concerned with the candidate’s job history, language skills and their personality. Are they qualified for the job? This is the question that employers want to answer as quickly as possible, but information on the CV that is not relevant slows the process down.

While it is possible to search a CV for specific terms when inside the document, it is impossible to do so for a bundle of hundreds or thousands of them, or to filter for specific requirements. For instance, a hotel searching for a new receptionist can’t filter to see all Russian speaking candidates with more than three years’ work experience in five star hotels.

The nature of CV’s is that they do not follow a uniform structure. They are presented and written in different ways. Some can be difficult to follow and to locate important information on, as well as contain spelling or grammatical errors. Many CV’s may not include the information that you are looking for and you may need to request it. This invariably prolongs the recruitment process.

Inability to attach certificates, proof of education and media (such as a video introduction)

Employers must request massive amounts of documentation to move forward with candidates using the traditional CV process, such as copies of training and education certificates. Additionally, it is impossible to get an idea of a candidate’s personality, and language and communication skills, which a short video would provide. Many employers complain that the purpose of the first interview in large part is to see these attributes, as it is not possible from merely looking at a CV.

It has become commonplace for the same job to have many different titles. This makes searching for candidates under a specific job title limiting, as it may filter out candidates who do fit the role but use a different job title in their CV. For instance, a hotel restaurant manager’s job title on their CV might be listed as ‘Food service manager’.

Employers can therefore miss out on seeing a perfectly good candidate and overlook them for their vacancy. Likewise, a candidate may search for a job vacancy but the employer advertising it uses a different job title. The solution is to standardise job titles, which would also eliminate any spelling mistakes. Google, for instance, are working on implementation of standardised job titles.

Is it the end for the CV in the service industry?

The CV will still have its place, but this is because there are simply always companies that take a long time to adapt to technology-driven changes that produce greater efficiency. But for smart, forward-thinking hospitality and retail businesses in the UAE that look for ways to improve their processes, the CV will no longer be needed. For companies that understand that all they need to see is candidate work experience and their personality, they will move forward and take advantage of new, simple technology-led solutions that produce cost and time savings.

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Arabian Gazette is your window to the Middle East and North Africa region that provides you with insightful news, features and analysis about matters related to business, economy, finance, society, technology and environment.

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Arabian Gazette is your window to the Middle East and North Africa region that provides you with insightful news, features and analysis about matters related to business, economy, finance, society, technology and environment.